Nvidia GeForce Experience, Cloud Based Game Configuration Service

One of the advantages that video game system players have is that they can play the games as they come, without having to change or tweak graphics settings to make the game run on their system. PC gamers on the other hand are not in such a comfortable position. Due to the mass of different configurations, from video cards to processors, memory and hard drives, it has become difficulty for developers to find the right default settings for each computer.

While experienced users may see the lack of configuration options as a disadvantage of game systems, inexperienced users may favor game systems exactly for that reason.

GeForce Experience

GeForce Experience was just announced at the GeForce Lan in Shanghai by Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. The idea behind the service is to provide GeForce owners with auto-configuration options for their cards and PC hardware. When enabled, the service checks the computer's hardware to configures the system for the best gaming experience. Since this needs to be done on a game by game basis, it may mean that hardware settings may change frequently depending on the games played on the PC system.

According to the keynote, there are billions of combinations when hardware, games, and their configuration options are taken into consideration. That's probably one of the reasons why four out of five gamers do not use optimal PC gaming settings, according to Nvidia's research.

GeForce Experience consists of two components. First a cloud based configuration database that contains a large amount of configurations, with virtually every new PC game covered, and then a local component that is automatically retrieving the best configuration for the user's PC, with options to select this setup, or use a custom setup as it was possible before.

What GeForce Experience gives you, is the performance of the PC, and the simplicity of a game console.

The idea itself makes sense, especially for inexperienced computer users who like to play games on the PC. Instead of having to understand what settings like antialiasing or antisoptric filtering means or do, and whether changing one or the other setting improves performance or game quality, it is now in theory possibly to use the GeForce Experience recommended settings for a PC system automatically, to get the best visual quality and performance.

It remains to be seen though if the service is really that good in finding the best setting for a particular PC hardware configuration, or if manual tweaks will still have the upper hand here. It is not really clear if users have a say in the matter, for instance by selecting whether they prefer performance or quality, or a specific resolution or feature enabled / disabled.

A beta of Nvidia's GeForce Experience service will launch on 6.6.2012. The service itself will become available for all owners of Nvidia GeForce video cards. What's your take on this new technology?

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About Martin Brinkmann

Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand.You can follow Martin on Facebook, Twitter or Google+

Comments

So it sounds like they are going to make an estimate of the best configuration for a PC based on the games installed on it. How often the configuration is refreshed isn’t clear. If it does it each time the PC boots, well, I can see this causing problems.

The big problem I see is having it deal with the wide performance requirements of old and new games. Will it see the new games and downgrade my settings, which will make the old games look/run poorly? That wouldn’t be good. Conversely, setting everything high for the old games could bring a system to its knees when a new game is run.

A better solution, and maybe this is what they intend, is to have the configuration adjusted when a game is run. It could max everything out for old games and pull it back for newer titles. Might be tricky, but that would be the best method.

Honestly though, I don’t know anyone who tweaks their video card for each game. Doesn’t seem like it is worth the effort.

well this just stupid if i do say so myself i mean you may aswell do console gaming if you dont know fuckall about anisotropic filtering antialiasing and so on in the firstplace . thats what sets pc aprt from the console is that you can tune the graphical settings to those higher than of a console . why would you want some stupid application or software doing it for you it basically means you dnt know fuckall about PC gaming and are just following the crowd.

Martin, thanks a ton for your advice, generally. An partly for this Piece as well. Just one question. Is Nvidia GeForce Experience and all related Nvidia stuff for videgames only? Does it improve, say, movies? (I am asking because I never play any computer games, just allergic to it, so I just don’t know.) Thanks in advance

” GeForce Experience is the companion application to your GeForce graphics card. It keeps your drivers up to date, it automatically optimizes your game settings, and it’s the easiest way to capture gameplay video or stream to twitch.”

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